


Back To The Start

by anxiousgeek



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Community: purimgifts, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 08:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousgeek/pseuds/anxiousgeek
Summary: Elissa sleeps very well when with Leliana.





	Back To The Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lark_Eden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lark_Eden/gifts).



Elissa has never slept better than she does curled up with Leliana.

It’s odd, she thinks, given everything that has happened to, that is happening to her but she sleeps soundly when the bard is with her. Even with the nightmares, the Archdemon plaguing her dreams on various nights, she wakes well rested; better than she ever did at home.

Better than she ever did in a soft bed with a warm fire.

She feels guilty about it sometimes. Like she should be suffering and not enjoying her nights on thin bedrolls in dark caves or cold grounds. Waking with the sun or to the screams of darkspawn (both in her mind and in the camp).

She shouldn’t be happy, and perhaps happy isn’t quite the right word. Content, at least at night and she is sure Leliana would agree.

She’s sure Leliana feels the same.

They talk of the future sometimes, wrapped up coarse blankets stolen from some estate near Redcliffe on bedrolls too thin to even stop them from feeling the stones and twigs they’ve missed. They talk about the near future, finding an inn to stay in the next village they visit, a large bed and a large meal. They talk about the far future, long after they’ve defeated the archdemon and can travel the length and breadth of Thedas together.

Always together.

They do not speak of how they will actually defeat the archdemon. 

Neither of them think they will come out of it alive.

It’s nice to dream though, Elissa thinks, to pretend they have a far future. 

She rides the naivety of it all right up until the evening of the final battle. Right up until Riordan tells them that someone needs to die to save Thedas. One of them. The three of them. Alastair is confused, Riordan resigned and Elissa, Elissa panics.

Her heart beats too fast, and it hurts, hurts her chest with how hard it beats. She can’t quite catch her breath and she’s dizzy but manages to talk to Morrigan, talk with Alistair, almost sound normal. She hopes.

It is not until Leliana pulls her into bed, the deal with Morrigan done they hope that she is calm again but even then her heartbeat is a little fast, her breathing too, and she can’t sleep. Even when Leliana is snoring beside her, wrapped around her and holding her so tight it hurts...she can’t sleep.

Instead, she thinks about what she’s about to lose if she dies. If Morrigan’s plan does not work. If the archdemon mows them all down with fire and fury.

It is the first time, in a long time, she does not sleep soundly.


End file.
